American Campaign Consulting: Trends and Concerns

Abstract

Lee Atwater to George Bush? No, it's Quintos Cicero advising his brother, M. P. Cicero. So, campaign consulting did not start forty years ago in California. A major reason-if not the only reason-for having campaign consultants is that political parties basically failed to do their job in a changing technological and social environment. The first trend is the tremendous growth of campaign consulting during the past 20 years. In 1967, the American Association of Political Consultants was formed in New York City by Cliff White, Joe Napolitan, and myself. It has been in operation for 21 years. Enormous changes in political campaigns have occurred within those 21 years. At that time, the American Association of Political Consultants had 30 or 40 members. Over the years, however, there has been a geometric growth in the organization's membership. Today, the AAPC has 800 members and represents about 400 firms. But that statistic is really insignificant because hundreds of persons who are not members of the AAPC are doing business as campaign consultants today. An estimated 12,000 people in America earn part or most of their living on political campaign consulting. That trend will likely continue. The second trend, closely related to the first, is the enormous growth of the amount of money spent on campaigns. Between 1984 and 1988, an estimated six billion dollars was spent on campaigns. More and more of that money was spent on campaign consultants. The cost of campaigns and of retaining consultants will continue to increase.